"Sally was busy in the shed when he came along, and wanted to help her considerable. 'Feel like peeling half a sackful?' says Sally; and when the fool stockman allowed he'd like it better than anything, says she, 'Then, as I'm tired, you can.' She just left him with it, while she talked to the other man; but there was grit in him, and he peeled away until morning. Wanted to marry her, too, he did."
Sally's glance foreboded future tribulation for the speaker, and Thorn frowned; but Steel, disregarding it, concluded gravely: "Dessay he might have done it, but he heard Sally turn loose on me one day, and took warning."
In spite of the shadow hanging over me, it was good to be at home, and perhaps the very uncertainty as to its duration made the somewhat sordid struggle of our life at Crane Valley almost attractive. Lane, it seemed only too probable, would crush us in the end, but there was satisfaction in the thought that every hour's work well done would help us to prolong our resistance. So the days of effort slipped by until I received a notice to present myself at court on a specified date, and, there being much to do, I delayed my departure until the last day. Steel insisted on accompanying me to the railroad, but protested against the time of starting. "One might fancy you were fond of jail by the hurry you're in to get back to it," he said. "We could catch the cars if we left hours later."
"It's as well to be on the right side," I said; for I had been in a state of nervous impatience all day. Wilkins had been found, and now that a decision appeared certain, I grew feverishly anxious to learn the best—or the worst.
It was a day in early summer when we set out and pushed on at a good pace, though already the sun shone hot. Steel, indeed, suggested there was no need for haste, but after checking my beast a little, I shot ahead again. "It might be your wedding you were going to!" he said.
We had covered part of the distance left to traverse on the second day when a freighter's lumbering ox-team crawled out of a ravine, and Steel pulled up beside him. "I don't know if you're mailing anything East, but you're late if you are," said the teamster.
"Then there's something wrong with the sun," said Steel. "If he's keeping his time bill we're most two hours too soon."
"You would have been last week," answered the other; while a sudden chill struck through me as I remembered the promised acceleration of the transcontinental express. "They've improved the track in the Selkirks sooner than they expected, and they're rushing the Atlantic hummer through on the new schedule this month instead of next."
Before he concluded I had snatched out my watch and simultaneously touched the beast with the spurs. The next moment the timepiece was swinging against my belt, and, with eyes fixed on the willows before me, I was plunging at a reckless gallop down the side of the ravine. The horse was young and resented the punishment, but I had no desire to hold him, and the further he felt inclined to bolt the better it would please me. So we smashed through the thinner willows, and somehow reeled down an almost precipitous slope, reckless of the fact that there was a creek at the bottom, while the trail wound round towards a bridge, until the hoofs sank into the soft ground, and we came floundering towards the tall growth by the water's edge. There the spurs went in again, and the beast, which knew nothing of jumping, rather rushed than launched itself at the creek. There was a splash and a flounder, a fountain of mire and water shot up, and green withes parted before me as we charged through the willows on the farther bank. The slope was soft and steep beneath the climbing birches, and by the time we were half way up the beast had relinquished all desire to bolt; but my watch showed me that go he must, and it was without pity I drove him at the declivity. Meantime, a thud of hoofs followed us, and when, racing south across the levels, we had left the ravine two miles behind, Steel came up breathless.
"Can you do it, Harry?" he panted.